The Minnesota Twins find themselves in a tough spot at 14-20, and patience is wearing thin with right-hander Simeon Woods Richardson. The 25-year-old pitcher took another hard loss Friday night, falling 7-3 to the Toronto Blue Jays at Target Field, and his season numbers are raising serious concerns.
Woods Richardson is now 0-5 with a 6.49 ERA over 34 2/3 innings. In Friday's outing, he managed just 4 2/3 innings, surrendering nine hits and four earned runs while striking out only two batters. Kazuma Okamoto tagged him for two home runs, and the Blue Jays were on the attack from the second inning onward. The Twins have now lost six of his seven starts this season.
After the game, manager Derek Shelton pointed directly to the young pitcher's splitter as a major issue. "It's strange. And I think it's more execution and more location," Shelton explained. "When that split is down, he gets swing and miss, he gets soft contact, but when it stays up and in the middle of the plate... we're seeing the results on it of the location of it." Shelton added that both home runs came on pitches left in the middle of the plate during deficit counts, emphasizing the need for better execution across the staff.
The numbers back up Shelton's frustration. Blue Jays hitters swung at 14 of Woods Richardson's splitters and didn't miss a single one, collecting three hits off the pitch. This is a stark contrast from earlier this season, when that same splitter looked like a legitimate weapon—especially during a strong outing against the Yankees, where it generated eight swinging strikes. Over the past few weeks, that version of the pitch has simply disappeared.
Woods Richardson acknowledged after the game that hitters are now sitting on the splitter, noting that if it's a good pitch, why wouldn't they. The problem for the Twins is that Woods Richardson is out of minor league options, so sending him down isn't an option. With the team already struggling to find consistency, this is a dilemma that won't be easy to solve. For fans and analysts alike, the question is whether the young right-hander can rediscover his command—or if the Twins will need to look elsewhere for answers.